Summer Holidays and Birthdays and Special Places
I Did Not Forget...
I did not forget your birthday, for I chose
to miss the feast of Punctuality,
an experiment in time to see
if anything would change -
but nothing did:
the world’s unchanging rumble, bouncing
off the subway tiles within my ears…
tedious eternity…
Dances and songs are born,
dances and songs die away;
Beauty will not last forever -
come along and see the stars!
Hey! Come along and dance!
Come here, my mother! Come here, my mother!
We are walking here; we are running here;
my younger brother and sister,
my younger brother and sister,
are crying now:
they think that they have lost their way:
sing them your intoxicating song,
a jewel from your Cretan crown!
This is the Father! This is the Father!
He comes in his nonchalant, ambling way,
looking very much preoccupied
by job reports and economic
information:
he will disguise his smile from us
until the very last minute, when
he scatters us with laughter!
Dances and songs are born,
dances and songs die away;
Beauty will not last forever -
come along and see the stars!
Hey! Come along and dance!
Older Brother and Sister coming along,
lightly bearing their wounds from casinos
of Afghanistan and of Iraq,
they keep their own private counsels
of their pain;
yet they come for the holiday;
they will dance, and they will sing
and will become nightingales!
Great-great-grandparents all across the street,
waiting for the infinite light to change,
straining to see their progeny:
is that my great-great-grandson there?!
great-granddaughter?
Waving to us like a great sea;
discarding death like a used Dixie cup,
they come to our birthday dance!
Dances and songs are born,
dances and songs die away;
Beauty will not last forever -
come along and see the stars!
Hey! Come along and dance!
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